


Sophie Roper and the House of the Serpent

by ReverendKilljoy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Azkaban, British Cuisine, Coming of Age, Godric's Hollow, Hogwarts First Year, Mentions of Cancer, Original Character(s), Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Statute of Secrecy (Harry Potter), The Sacred Twenty-Eight (Harry Potter), Wizard Chess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:35:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24418972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReverendKilljoy/pseuds/ReverendKilljoy
Summary: Sophie Roper, pureblood witch, West Country girl, the pride of Godric's Hollow, also known as the Hangman's daughter, sets off on her adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, coincidentally at the same time as another (former) resident of that village, a certain Harry Potter. This is not his story, but hers: The story of Sophie Roper and the House of the Serpent.
Relationships: Alvertus Greengrass/Alora Greengrass, David Roper/Karen Roper
Comments: 10
Kudos: 4





	1. The Hangman's Daughter

**Book 1: Sophie Roper and the House of the Serpent**

Chapter 1: The Hangman’s Daughter

Not far from the churchyard in a small village in the West Country, located midway between Taunton and Frome, was the public house known as Hangman’s Hall. Originally the shop and residence of a family of rope-makers, the building had been a pub since the late seventeenth century. The only remaining traces of the original function were the highly detailed ropes braided on the gallows sign, and the name of the family who lived across from the pub, the Ropers.

Although the Ropers had been involved in rope-making for the Royal navy when they settled in the village, they were now by long association confused with the noose and gibbet, and the eldest Mr. Roper was always known around the village as The Hangman, and he had certain mostly honorary duties during various festivals common throughout the year in small villages of this type. The current Hangman was a Mr. David Alison Roper, a youngish forty or so years of age, who lived across from Hangman’s Hall in a large but not opulent house which had been in his family for a very long time indeed.

Mr. Roper was married to a somewhat plain-looking, but exceedingly hard-working and warmhearted woman named Karen Selwyn Roper. The Ropers, with the younger of their two sons and their daughter, led a peaceful and largely uneventful life, enjoying the gentle rhythms of life in the village of Godric’s Hollow. Their older son had gone into government service and was employed in trade regulations in Ireland. The younger son, Bryce, worked at the Hangman's Hall and had unsubtle intentions toward the pub's current owner’s daughter, with eyes towards a match that would keep them both in the village for the rest of their lives.

If there was one soul in the family who seemed in any way to chafe at life in the genteel environs of the family estate and local community, it was the Hangman’s daughter, Sophie Roper. For unlike her parents and her brothers, who been away to school and had their adventures in the world, Sophie, soon to turn eleven years old, had never been anywhere, and yearned for the day that she would leave the dust of the village behind, first for boarding school, and then for a life of adventure and purpose.

The adventure and purpose she knew should have to discover for herself, but the boarding school was a certainty. As her birthday approached, Sophie had taken to sitting on the fence rail which separated the Ropers’ back garden from the graveyard, which along with the village common formed the eastern edge of the village. It was from this spot that young Sophie kept her vigil every morning and evening, constantly on the lookout for owls.

For Sophie Roper, truth be told, was a witch like her mother before her, and her mother, and so on, and her brothers and father, too. Wizards, obviously, for the boys, not witches. But for a century or more on both sides, the Ropers and the Selwyns (her mother’s people) had all been magical folk, and she knew in her bones that her letter would soon come, inviting her to attend the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Life in the quiet village, which had rather a large number of magical families, considering its modest population, had not agreed with Sophie. She felt, quite strongly from a very early age, that she was destined for something great, some higher purpose beyond the village into which she had been born. The fact that, should she climb the hill on the far side of the common, she would just about see the entirety of Godric’s Hollow was simply intolerable to her. She was clever, and had quickly outstripped the other students at the village primary school, to which she had been sent to learn her letters, music, arts, and maths, but most importantly where she had learned how to blend in with Muggles.

For it was the Muggles, the non-magical people, who currently ran much of Godric’s Hollow, and the West Country, and Britain, for that matter. She supposed, when she stopped to consider it, that Muggles must more or less run the world, and witches like herself were bound by strict statutes of secrecy to never divulge the existence of magic. Many a time she had wanted to hex or jinx one of the slower students in her school, dullard Muggles that were holding her back, though there were other wizarding children in the village who she felt compelled to outstrip as well. Whatever her final calling, whatever it was that was waiting for her in the great wider world, Sophie was fairly certain that it would not wait for Agnes Dowling to at long last master the finer points of multiplication and division.

Still, having not any formal training in magic other than what she observed at home, Sophie could not have jinxed poor Agnes no matter how sincerely she wished to do so. So today, her birthday, as yesterday, the Hangman’s daughter sat on the fence rail and watched for owls.

“Hullo, there,” her father’s voice came from the house, but she kept to her vigil, watching over the graveyard, keenly looking for the sight of an owl winging its way from across the common. “So, how’s our Sophie today, then?”

Her father was a successful and educated wizard, and she knew that he could have worked in London, in Diagon Alley, in the Ministry of Magic, maybe even with the Goblins at Gringotts bank. Instead, he’d finished school, spent an extra year studying potions after his N.E.W.T. exam with a recommendation from his housemaster, Professor Snape, and then rushed right back to Godric’s Hollow with his new bride in hand, as if he’d never left. Now he brewed rare and unusual potions by special commission and occasionally trafficked in especially hard to find ingredients for his trade.

“Not an owl in sight,” she sighed bitterly. Her father’s arms surrounded her, and he lifted her up and off the rail with ease. Her father was a big man, a bit softer in the middle now than in the pictures from his school days, but easily capable of hefting Sophie over one shoulder and twirling her about, a habit she had recently pretended to find annoying but that she secretly feared she would miss terribly when she went away to school.

“Come in and get your supper, child,” her father said, spinning her about, “Your mother’s made it special, your stargazy pie.”

She squealed, totally without dignity, and fairly flew into the house, where she apparently spent insufficient time washing up to satisfy her mum and was forced to walk slowly back to do it again. By the time she reached the table, her brother was on his way out the door for his shift at the pub. 

“Bye now, Sophie,” Bryce called over his shoulder. You enjoy ‘un. And happy birthday!”

He scooped a pasty wrapped in a tea towel under his arm on the way out the door. The Hangman’s House had a fair kitchen, but Karen Roper made the best meat or fish pies in the county and had won the ribbons to prove it. What’s more, she could make them completely without magic, Muggle fashion, when called upon so as to not claim an unfair advantage in a contest. Sophie thought that giving up any advantage in a contest was a foolish way to lose rather than a great sign of nobility, but this was forgotten when her mother set the warm stargazy pie in front of her.

Her favorite food in the whole world, the stargazy pie was so named because, from inside the golden, flaky crust filled with hard-boiled eggs, potatoes, bacon, and mustard-flavored custard, whole sardines poked their heads through the top crust, appearing to gaze at the stars, hence the name. The sardines were not placed this way just for whimsy, but so their oil was distributed down and kept the piecrust tender and delicious.

Her eyes opened wide as saucers, and she took a moment to consider the special effort that her mother made, making the complex dish just for her birthday celebration. Sophie Roper was very much loved, and despite her desire to seem mature and aloof, she could not contain her smiles as she dished up servings of the stargazy pie, first to her mother, then her father, and finally to herself. She may have taken a rather large portion for herself, but neither parent said a thing as they indulged their only daughter on her eleventh birthday.

“Mother, can we go shopping for my school things soon?” Sophie said around a mouthful of hard-boiled egg and custard. She swallowed mightily, and said more clearly, “We haven’t been to the city together in ages, just _ages_.”

“Well, I don’t know,” her mother said, eyeing her husband slyly, “We might want to wait until you get your owl, you know.”

Her father added seriously, “That’s true, Mother. Wouldn’t want to have to make another trip to return a bunch of unneeded school things, if’n her letter doesn’t come.”

Sophie dropped her fork with a clatter, the last bites of pie forgotten. She looked with huge, frightened eyes, from her father to her mother and back again. Her voice was quivering, and she was white as a sheet, her pixie-cut brown hair suddenly dark against her pale face. “Doesn’t... doesn't come?”

“Well, it happens, they say. Even pureblood families, every so often, will get a squib,” her father went on sagely, referring to the rare non-magical child that sometimes showed up even in established wizarding families. Neither the Ropers nor the Selwyns had produced a squib in more generations than they had records, but Sophie could not have known this as it was not the sort of thing politely discussed in wizarding families of a certain heritage.

Sophie suddenly jumped to her feet and ran crying from the room.

“Oh, David, now look! You always take it too far, trying to tease her like you do the boys.” They could hear muffled sobbing coming from Sophie’s room upstairs.

Her father threw his napkin down and sighed. “Your right, as usual, Mother. Let me go see if’n I can mend the poor girl’s heart.”

Mr. Roper knocked softly, then opened the door before Sophie could tell him to go away. She was buried face down on her bed, her small body wracked with sobs. He sat beside her, and slowly stroked her hair, letting the tears come before he tried to console her.

“Now, pet, you know your mother was just having a go, don’t you? Why I bet you’re going to be the best witch this family has seen in a century. More, even.”

She sniffled, a long wet sound, and regarded him through her bangs and her tears. She looked as if she didn’t dare hope, and he realized that his teasing must have accidentally touched on the girl’s deepest, private fears. 

“Honestly?” Her voice was heartbreaking.

“Honest,” he said solemnly. “I never should have teased you, pet. You’ve just been so grown up and serious this week, and tonight it hit home that you’ll be going off to Hogwarts soon. I know you want more than the village can offer you, and I’m just not ready to say goodbye just yet.”

Now it was his turn to brush unaccustomed tears from his eyes. “Bryce will probably marry Clara, just a matter of time. Might never move farther away than across the lane, that one. But you, you have your eye on something a great deal farther away than the Hangman’s House, that’s for sure. I’m going to miss you, pet.”

She hugged him, suddenly and savagely. “I may move away, but I’ll always be the Hangman’s daughter, papa.” They sat together, until she began to nod, eyes heavy. He helped her get ready for the night and tucked her into her bed with her stuffed niffler, Goldie.

He was careful to head back down to his wife quietly, but Sophie was asleep before he even closed her door.

You Have Been Warned: https://www.tasteatlas.com/stargazy-pie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: Stargazy pie exists, though it is more native to Cornwall than Godric’s Hollow. It may very well have traveled to that village over the years…


	2. The Not-Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophie Roper decides to spend a beautiful summer day out on the village common, and perhaps playing by the pond. It is there that she encounters a familiar face in unfamiliar circumstances. She listens to another, and she learns something about herself. Quite an eventful way to spend her not-birthday.

**Chapter 2: The Not-Birthday**

The following morning, Sophie awoke to find that somehow in the night, she had wriggled and turned until her stockinged feet were on her pillow, and she and Goldie were burrowed deep under her blanket. It was hot and dark and close, but also oddly comforting. They were in their own private world. Still, it was her not-birthday, so she supposed she best see about presents and breakfast, in that order.

Sophie had been born right at the stroke of midnight eleven years previously, and there was a good deal of debate as to whether or not she had been born on 31 July or 1 August, with half the family holding to one date and half to the other. By long-established compromise, her birthday dinner was in July, but her “not birthday” parties, cakes, presents and suchlike were in August. Today being the first day of August, she emerged from her bed to find a small pile of not-birthday presents.

From her older brother, Byron, there was a charmed pot of “Leprechaun Gold,” heavy yellow galleons which vanished seconds after you removed them, only to reappear in the pot. She laughed and set the pot with Goldie, imagining the frustration the niffler would have with an inexhaustible supply of unstealable gold.

A plain brown paper-wrapped parcel from Bryce, which she expected to contain socks or something else equally practical, instead held a bookbag with a strengthening charm, guaranteed to not tear or spill no matter how many textbooks she piled into it. It must have cost him a good many weeks’ wages, and she had to brush away tears when she saw his enclosed note, _“Good luck taking over the world. Hogwarts never seen anything like our Sophie!”_

From her father, there was a small case, which when opened proved to be a very complete potions kit, filled with tiny vials of rare ingredients, a professional-grade mortar and pestle, and a handwritten list of helpful ways to rescue beginner’s potions gone wrong. It was beautiful, a match for the kit he himself still used every day in his work, and it made her feel very much a part of the long line of Roper potion masters.

From her mother, she did not find anything, until clearing away the wrappings she spotted an envelope. Inside, in addition to a train ticket, was a note from her mother.

_“Dear Sophie,_

_Happiest of not-birthdays. It seems like only yesterday you were red-faced and crying, hanging on your mother and father. Wait, that was yesterday! Seriously, though, I am terribly proud of you and of the young witch you’re becoming. I would like for you to take the enclosed ticket as a sign of our grudging acknowledgment that you are indeed growing up._

_I have arranged for you to spend a week with our friends in London, the Greengrasses, prior to our shopping trip for your school things. You shall ride the train with your Father, who has business in the city and stay for a week with the Greengrass girls, who I am sure you remember from last summer at the seaside. I will collect you after, and we’ll do your school shopping and ride home together. I hate to miss even one more day with you before you leave for school, but you are growing up, and you deserve a little adventure before school begins._

_With love, always,_

_Mother”_

Sophie came downstairs, her short hair all higglety-pigglety and her face mock-serious.

“Good morning, Mother. Good morning, Father. I say, is there any coffee?”

Her parents managed a good fifteen or twenty seconds before dissolving into laughter, and Sophie made it perhaps ten seconds more before giggling and smiling broadly.

“Well, if’n our Sophie isn’t grown up, now,” her father managed at last. “She’ll be off to her job running the country, next, Mother.”

“Well, someone had a not-birthday this morning, surely,” her mother agreed, wiping a tear away with the corner of her apron. She laid Sophie’s breakfast on the table, and sat down, using her wand to hotten up her tea casually before relaxing at the table. “Presents met your satisfaction, then?”

“Yes, mum,” Sophie said around an entire rasher of bacon. “Lovely. Thank you so much.”

“You be sure to say something to your brother before he goes over to pub later,” her father said seriously. “He won’t say, but he put in a lot of hours for that bookbag, sent off for it special.”

“Yes, I will.” Sophie paused, a fork full of egg and tomato scramble halfway to her mouth. “It really has been a most excellent morning. I think after breakfast I’ll wash up and take a walk across the common if that’s okay?”

While there were places in Britain where a young girl like Sophie might not be safe walking around alone on a summer morning, Godric’s Hollow was not that sort of place. Other than a famous, scandalous but entirely out of place attack a decade prior, there had not been a serious crime in the Hollow in decades. Plus, the wizarding folk were especially vigilant, watching out not only for their own children but for the Muggles in the village as well. One of the reasons that Mr. Roper had been so keen to return to the village after school, and take up his role as the Hangman from his own father, was the quiet, peaceful life of the village. You still had to go to Castle Cary or Bruton even to catch the London trains, and the motorway had not reached the village either, leaving the lanes largely safe for children, old age pensioners out on a walkabout, or the good many bicyclists around the village.

Still, Sophie was their youngest, and their daughter and part of a parent’s job is to worry. The Hangman considered a moment but then smiled indulgently. “You go do your wandering, but be back a’fore your tea, mind. And don’t forget about your brother.”

“Yes, I shan’t.” She hurriedly shoveled the remaining eggs and bacon between two pieces of toast and wrapped them with her napkin. “Supplies. For later.”

And like a shot, she was off. Her mother and father sat for a moment, enjoying their tea, and trying to adjust to the quiet that soon would be their everyday lot.

Mr. Roper put down his cup and dabbed his lips with a napkin. “That were lovely, my dearest.”

As he went down the stairs to start his workday in his potions lab in the cellar, his wife smiled. She took pen to parchment and began planning out everything she would need for Sophie to pack for her upcoming trip. While they enjoyed the quiet and peace of Godric’s Hollow, both the Ropers had been excellent and successful students, with their pick of magical careers after school. It was by her conscious choice that Karen Selwyn had married Brian Roper and settled down into motherhood, not any lack of magical ability.

With a negligent flick of her wand, the breakfast dishes proceeded into the sink and began scrubbing themselves, while another cup of tea poured itself for her as she diligently filled in her daughter’s list. Sophie went flying past into the back garden, with a shouted farewell and a slammed door, soon after.

Sophie briefly surveyed the horizon for owls, then she climbed over the stile in the back fence, taking her usual shortcut through the graveyard of the old village church. She had grown up with the graveyard, so she never had found it spooky or offputting as some children might have done, nor did she credit the local myth that the grounds were haunted. In fact, she found the graves of the many wizarding families among the many stones comforting, as they showed that her people had lived in the village alongside their non-magical kin for centuries, more or less peacefully.

She noted the names as she passed, from memory more than sight, of the wizards and witches resting there. Ropers, of course, and a couple of Dumbledores, a great old wizard name that meant “bumblebee.” She always buzz-buzzed to herself as she passed those two. A whole slew of Bagshots, down one row to the west. The Potters, with their cryptic epitaph, and a few ancient, weathered stones of the Peverells. Her favorite, just before the gate, was a small white stone, over a century old, for poor Jefferey Fawley. On it, his birth and death dates—five scant years apart—and the unexplained words, _“Damn you, Selkie!”_ in silver across the bottom.

Sophie passed through the gate and turned onto the common. Old Mrs. Bagshot’s goat Daniel was nosing among some weeds by his tie post. A young Muggle family was struggling to get a kite into the air, the red-faced father puffing as he ran back and forth with his golden-haired son on his shoulders holding a string. The usually reliable breeze over the hill was wavering in the warm summer air, and the kite would quickly fall each time it cleared the child’s shoulders.

Still, the boy’s mother was urging them on, and the father was gamely jogging back and forth while his son laughed in a high, clear voice that reached Sophie clearly across the common. She took a moment to watch them, and for a moment wondered if, when she got her wand, she would send a friendly puff of wind their way to save the father from his labors. Probably not, she decided. There were very strict rules about the kind of magic one was allowed to do around Muggles, even in Godric’s Hollow.

Sophie edged around the hill, with no particular destination in mind but not wishing to intrude on the Muggles with their kite. She remembered one evening after her brothers had come home from school; she could not have been more than four or five. Byron had brought her and Bryce to the common with some old family broomsticks. With a few protective concealing charms in place, the boys had tried to teach her the basics of flying, but she’d not been much use. Byron had spent a lot of the evening with one hand reaching back to the end of her broomstick, dragging her around the common six or seven feet off the ground, while she had madly shouted that the was flying, “REALLY flying!” She thought about that day as she watched the Muggle father, lifting his hands from his knees, standing straight again and running, running with his son across the hill while the little red kite trailed behind them.

She was reaching The Neck, her own name for a spot where the brook on the far side of the hill had been partially blocked by a fallen tree, and an occasional pond now formed every spring. Despite the heat today, it had been a wet spring and a cool summer, so there was still a small pond in the depression near the book, and she had planned on making leaf boats to sail on it.

Instead, she slowed as she approached The Neck, hearing someone else in what she thought of privately as her special spot. She looked through the brush and saw Agnes Dowling of all people sitting on the fallen log. Her shoes were off, but her legs were too short for her feet to reach the water left in the shallow pond from her perch. Just as Sophie was about to say something cross in the hopes of making Agnes go away, she saw that the girl was crying. Her black hair was a mess, one ponytail almost falling loose while the other was uneven. Her face was red, and she was wiping her nose against the short sleeve of her t-shirt miserably.

Sophie was turning to go, wanting to give the Muggle girl her privacy when she stepped on a briar thorn and cursed softly as it poked her foot through her trainer.

“Who’s there?” Agnes called, belligerently. “I see you! Who is that?”

While this situation was already awkward and embarrassing enough, Sophie would not want to be caught running and be called a spy. She stepped out where Agnes could see her.

“Sorry. Just me.” Sophie tried to avoid meeting the crying girl’s eyes. “I was just going to float some leaves. Didn’t mean to intrude.”

Agnes glared at her, but then her face fell and her shoulders slumped.

“No, it’s not your fault. I suppose everyone will know soon enough, the way I can’t stop blubbering. Might as well come out.”

Sophie stepped down to the edge of the pond, noting a few small frogs hiding among the grasses at the water’s edge. She glanced at Agnes, sideways, and mumbled something conciliatory sounding.

Agnes just sat, still slumped. “Just as well we’re changing schools. Sure you’ll do fine, wherever it is you’re off to.” Sophie had vaguely mentioned going away to school in reply to questions about her plans after the Hollow’s Primary. “Now I’ll be called the crying one as well as the stupid one.”

“You’re not stupid,” Sophie said automatically, forgetting that just the day before she had been cursing slow Agnes Dowling for holding her back. “You were fine in school, mostly.”

“This year, it’s just all gone to shit,” Agnes said, shocking Sophie, who rarely used profanity, certainly not casually with a school acquaintance. “I just couldn’t keep on my lessons, not after… Well, it was just hard, wasn’t it?”

She had a sort of quiet pleading in her voice that Sophie picked up on, and she made a decision that leaf boats would wait for another day. She approached the log, removed her shoes and socks, and then sat down, a short distance from the other girl, but close enough for a private conversation.

“Want to talk about it?” She asked hesitantly.

“No!” Agnes snapped, then immediately lunged across the log, and wrapped her arms around Sophie’s waist before the poor witch could think to move. “I’m sorry, it’s not your fault, I’m sorry!”

Sophie awkwardly patted Agnes on the head, and let her cry noisily for a bit, then gently helped the girl disentangle herself from Sophie and sit up. She sat, in awkward silence, her naturally kind and curious nature at war with her proper British desire to avoid any topic of personal conversation, especially emotional conversation.

“It’s my dad,” Agnes said at last, her voice so small that Sophie almost missed it.

“I’m sorry,” Sophie said, wondering how long it would be before she could gracefully excuse herself and go literally anywhere else. Would thirty seconds be courteous enough? Twenty?

“He’s got the _cancer_ ,” the other girl said, the word coming out like an Unforgiveable Curse.

“That sounds bad,” Sophie said. She was not actually sure what the cancer was, but Agnes’s tone left no doubt about how terrible she considered it to be. “Is there anything they can do?”

Sophie had decided that the words “anything” and “they” in this sentence were safely vague enough.

“It doesn’t look like,” Agnes said. “He might have six months, as much as a year if’n he takes the treatments, he says.”

Sophie’s eyes grew wide and round, and she turned to face Agnes squarely. 

“Your father… your father is going to _die_?” 

The thought was astonishing. She knew that Muggles often didn’t live as long as wizards and witches, but the idea that someone her age, that she herself, might have someone in her family just _die_ was beyond her experience.

Agnes, admirably, did not dissolve into tears or flee in terror as Sophie would have done but instead nodded resolutely. This must have been on her mind for some time, Sophie realized, and she had just caught the girl in a moment of particular weakness.

“How long have you known?” Sophie didn’t want to pry, but she felt a horrid fascination, unable to resist finding out more.

“He found out before Christmas. Didn’t let me know until after, of course. Didn’t want it spoiled, did he?” The matter-of-fact way that Agnes related this information was as horrific to Sophie as the idea itself. She imagined her own father, who she had just seen earlier at breakfast, working away down in his brew shop, never letting Sophie see his tears. Her mother, stoically preparing stargazy pie and egg breakfasts, waiting until Sophie went off about her own business before she cried into her apron. She imagined throwing open the door to the cellar and finding it dark, empty.

She suddenly found herself with Agnes Dowling in her arms, her tears falling into the girl’s longish black hair.

“I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry!”

Now it was time for Agnes to awkwardly pat at Sophie, and after a time, the two sat quietly, staring into the shallow pond.

“Well, look at me, ruining things for you and your boats.” Agnes heaved herself heavily to her feet and walked barefoot along the log towards the grass. As she let Agnes pass, Sophie suddenly called out.

“Would you like to stay? We can float leaf boats together if you like. I know that sounds stupid.”

Agnes smiled, ever so slightly. “Really? With you? That would be nice, yeah. Change is as good as a rest, as my dad… as folks say.”

They created an armada of tiny boats, each made of a leaf folded so that one end became a sail. They chased frogs, but then released them. They washed their hands and feet in the brook, and Sophie shared her provisions of egg scramble and bacon. When the sun rose too high and became oppressive, they burrowed back into the cool leaves by the brook, where they shared complex stories of pirates and adventures.

Agnes learned that Sophie’s older brother lived in Ireland. Agnes's mother was from there, but she had no recollection of the woman. It had just been Agnes and her dad so long as she could remember. Sophie learned that Agnes was self-conscious about her struggles at school, and had started falling behind as she took over more and more chores for her father, who still worked long hours. He worked in the next village in a shop that sold expensive cheeses, mostly to tourists and buyers for restaurants in the surrounding area,

Many of the cheeses he made and sold went far around the world by post, and in the drawing-room of their cottage, he’d placed a big map on the wall. On it, he and Agnes placed pins for every place her father had sent his cheeses, and they called it the Adventure Map, and they joked that one day they would go to each place, and they would ask after their cheeses and hear their stories. Agnes said this with a red face, but Sophie thought it was amazing and encouraged her to go on. It was only after Agnes had grown very quiet that Sophie realized that they both knew now that Agnes and her father would never take their cheese adventure. The two girls sat in the quiet, cool leaves until Agnes sat up suddenly.

“It isn’t half late!” She peered out at the sky. “I have to be getting home!”

“I do as well,” Sophie said. “But we can see each other again soon?”

“You think?” Agnes paused from where she was tying her trainers. “You’d want to?”

“More than anything,” Sophie answered at once. “Tomorrow afternoon, by the graveyard gate? I’ll bring sandwiches.”

“Thanks, Sophie.” Agnes blushed as she stood and dusted herself off. “To be honest, I didn’ think you much cared for me. Been a surprising day, this.”

“I’m sorry that it took so long for me to get to know you,” Sophie admitted. “See you tomorrow!”

The two girls ran off in the early evening summer sun, towards their respective homes.

When Sophie arrived and barrelled through the door, her mother was clearly about to comment on her tardiness. Before she could say a word, Sophie ran to her and threw her arms around her mother, squeezing her tightly and kissing against her side as she held on.

Sophie pulled back and searched the room quickly with her eyes. “Where’s Papa?”

“He just went to wash up. What’s got into you?” But her mother was talking to an empty kitchen as Sophie had raced out looking for her father.

A moment later, the Hangman entered the kitchen, the Hangman’s daughter swinging like a pendulum on his chest, her arms around his neck.

“So, what’s all this about?” he asked his wife.

“No idea, Brian,” she said. “But see if you can peel her loose and we’ll see about getting food on the table.”

Sophie craned her neck so she could plead with her mother while still holding onto her father’s neck. “Please Mum, please? Can we go to Hangman’s House, and say hello to Bryce and Clara? We can have dinner there, and you and father can have cider, and I’ll have a shandy, and we’ll all be together? Please?”

She looked to her husband, who shrugged. They usually went about every fortnight or so to the pub, just to check in with the neighbors and stay connected to the goings-on in the village. They didn’t usually go on the spur of the moment, but there was no reason they couldn’t.

Her mother nodded and moved to go past them. “Just let me put on something decent if we’re out to the pub.”

Suddenly, Sophie had an arm around each of her parents and was very nearly spun around in the air. “I love you both. I love you so much, I never say it enough.”

The couple looked at one another in amused confusion, and Brian grabbed Sophie and disconnected her from her mother, setting her down on her feet.

“Now, you go take a proper wash, and then you pop over and let Clara know we’re coming by shortly. And no shandy, mind. You get a lemonade for yourself, hear?”

“Yes, papa,” she said, already heading to wash up. The Hangman shook his head and prepared happily for what qualified in his world as an unexpected family evening out.


	3. Friends and Families

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophie has a talk with her brother while on an errand for their mother, then has a briefly awkward picnic with Agnes Dowling. Sophie makes a promise to her friend, and nearly misses an important message.

**Chapter 3: Friends and Families**

Bryce Roper was more than surprised to find himself yawning, still half asleep, with his sister bouncing impatiently on the side of his bed. He’d worked until late, well after his family’s surprise visit to Hangman’s Hall had ended the previous evening. He rubbed at his eyes, and groggily grunted a greeting to Sophie.

“Morning, little monkey,” he grumbled. “What’s got you all excited then?”

Now that she was certain her brother was awake, Sophie was suddenly almost still, and said in a serious voice, “I was so busy yesterday, I forgot to thank you for my not-birthday present. It really is wonderful and means ever so much.”

He grinned, and ran an appraising hand over the very, very fine stubble on his chin which he had been cultivating for the last week. “Is that all? You’re welcome, but weren’t nothing.”

He yawned again and stretched. 

“Could have waited until I’ve had my coffee, I’m sure,” he said. Now that he was a working man, and late nights as well, he had insisted on switching from tea to coffee, which he took with four sugars and quite a bit of milk as he had not actually adjusted to the bitter flavour yet.

“Oh, yes,” said Sophie, indicating his bedside table. On it was a large mug of pale, milky coffee and a few pieces of toast slathered in butter and jam. “I brought you some breakfast.”

He eyed her suspiciously as he sat up and swung his legs out of bed, taking a large but from a piece of toast. Satisfied that she was not trying some sort of prank, he took a sip of his coffee. Light, and extra sweet.

“All right, monkey,” he said at last, “what is it that you want? I’m sure you’re not here buttering up your brother for no particular reason.”

Her look was so perfectly innocent and artless that he was certain it was faked.

“Can’t a sister just show her brother some gratitude? Must everything have an ulterior motive?”

He raised an eyebrow and took another bite of toast. She faltered under his suspicion.

“Okay, you win. I have some questions for you. But I honestly did mean to thank you for the bookbag. I promised Papa I would, and then the day got away from me.”

He relented and offered her a piece of toast, which she accepted.

“You’re welcome, again. Now as to these questions, I’ll do my best. Fire away.”

She nibbled nervously at the corner of her toast, something which he could not recall seeing before. Sophie did not let worries interfere with food. After a minute or so, she finally burst out with several questions at once.

“Why did you come back to the Hollow? Why did Byron leave? And what is it like to live at Hogwarts, and how do you get sorted into the right house? Why don’t Muggles live as long as we do? And what—”

He held up a hand. “Hey, slow down there!”

She folded her hands together as if physically holding back more questions.

“It sounds,” Bryce told her, “like you have a good many questions today. Why don’t we both get dressed, and see if Mum needs anything from the shops? We’ll go for a walk ‘round the village and see if we can’t get some of your answers. All right?”

“Thank you!” She unfolded her coltish legs and bounced to her feet with the energy possessed only by an excited eleven-year-old. “You’re the best brother!”

As she was dashing out to get dressed, he called after her, “I’ll be telling Byron you said that!”

As they prepared to go into the local P.O., the Post Office store, Bryce handed Sophie a 20p coin in Muggle money. She turned it over in her fingers, noting the curious shape. She had been taught the basics of Muggle currency, of course, but had rarely handled anything but the odd 10p coin for milk money.

“That’s for sweets,” Bryce said, “so pick careful.”

While Bryce collected some things for their mother, Sophie looked at the assortment of candies, chocolates, and biscuits available. She found a smallish packet of chocolate biscuits, 10p apiece, and presented her coin for two of them. Bryce pointed out a larger packet, but Sophie declined, saying she’d rather have two packets. He laughed and they began walking home.

In fact, she had decided that she would bring Agnes Dowling her own packet of biscuits, rather than offering to share. It seemed more dignified. Sophie got the impression that Agnes did not often get treats, given her situation.

“Bryce,” Sophie asked hesitantly as they walked along the lane towards home, “can you answer something for me?”

“I can try, sure’n,” he said, eating a crisp from the small bag he had purchased. He had promised his mother that he would never waste his money on crisps over at the pub, so he was forced to sneak them from time to time on trips to the P.O.

“What is—” Sophie lowered her voice as Mrs. Anderson crossed their path with a murmured ‘good day’ and a wave. “What exactly is _the cancer_?”

“Where did you hear about that?” he asked, surprised. “You been reading the Muggle paper again?”

“Something like that,” Sophie said. She felt bad lying to Bryce, especially when asking for his help, but she didn’t feel that Agnes’s story was hers to tell. “Do you know?”

“Well, I’m not up on all the details, mind,” Bryce said, “but I’ve heard of it. Cancer’s a kind of Muggle disease. It doesn’t spread like a cold, or the dragon pox, or nothing, it seems as though some Muggles just get poorly with it. Oh, and there’s all different sorts. They can get it in their skin, the brains or lungs, even in their blood. Sometimes they get better with some kind of Muggle medicine, sometimes they don’t.”

“And if they don’t… they can die?” She tried to keep the horror from her voice, but Bryce reached over and squeezed her shoulder comfortingly.

“Don’t you worry none, now,” he said. “Never heard of any wizard catching the cancer. You just let yer Mugglefolk worry about that.”

Sophie finished their walk in thoughtful silence.

“Mum, I’m meeting a friend for a picnic today. May I take the straw basket?”

Mrs. Roper looked up from her ledger. She spent one day per week updating her husband’s accounts. Her eyes were large behind the magical magnifying spectacles she wore to enlarge and clarify her husband’s handwriting in his receipt book. How anyone ever read the scrawlings of a healer to a potions master without such help was beyond her understanding.

“A picnic? Well, I suppose. It’s a nice enough day. But next time, ask before you arrange to see a friend. Is it Tilda Crooks?”

Sophie made a face, imagining the wheedling, simpering girl from the year below her at school. Her older siblings were okay sorts, but Tilda was a damp rag all through. 

Her mother chuckled and asked, “Oh, must be that Caleb Kettles, then? He is a pretty lad.”

Caleb Kettles was in her year, and the oldest son of a respectable wizarding family. He was also the color of oatmeal with not enough cream, and whistled through the prominent gap in his front teeth whenever he breathed.

“Ew! Mother!” Sophie laughed through her outrage. “It’s just a girl from my year, we talked yesterday, and I’d like to see her today, is all. May I use the basket, please?”

“You may, and have a good lunch. There’s corned beef in the icebox, and a loaf fresh yesterday in the breadbox. Don’t take all my apples, mind, I want some of those for the pork roast tonight.”

“Yes, Mum, thank you.”

Sophie made a stack of sandwiches, some with and some without mustard as she did not know how Agnes preferred them. A small jar of sweet pickles, two apples, and a few peeled carrots joined the sandwiches in the basket. After peeking in to see that her mother was still bent over the accounts, Sophie added the charmed jug of milk that would stay good and cold for at least the afternoon.

Covering the lunch with an old blanket they could use, she hefted the basket in both arms and made for the back garden. As she carefully lowered the basket over the fence into the graveyard before following after it herself, a very large, tawny owl swept silently overhead, unnoticed, towards her house.

She hurried through the graveyard, a bit concerned that she was late. Just as she arrived at the gatepost, she saw Agnes coming over the hill. Sophie set down the basket, and she waved as the other girl approached.

“Hello, Agnes,” she said warmly.

“Hi, Sophie,” Agnes said, breathing heavily. “Sorry if’n I’m late. Chores took longer than I thought.”

“Not at all,” Sophie replied. “I just got here myself. Are you thinking we should eat on the common? Or will it be too hot?”

“What about over by the pond, like yesterday? It stayed pretty cool under the trees.”

“Over by the Neck, that’s a great idea.” Agnes looked at her in confusion. “The Neck is what I call that little bend in the creek, just my own name for it.”

“I like that. The Neck. Never had a name, just thought of it as a nice spot. Makes it sound like a real place.”

Agnes reached out and grabbed one handle of the basket without being asked, and they carried it much more easily across the hill towards the Neck. Agnes did not have a basket, but she carried a school bag slung over one shoulder which bulged with unknown contents. Being slightly broader in the shoulders and more solid in the legs than Sophie, Agnes seemed to have no problem carrying both her bag and her share of the weight of the basket. Sophie noticed that her pigtails, once again, were uneven, though not so bad as yesterday.

They arrived at their selected spot, and Sophie began spreading out the blanket and unpacking the sandwiches, milk, and fruit she had brought. She saw Agnes looking sheepishly at all the food, and Sophie said casually, “I hope you don’t mind, but since I promised to bring sandwiches, I went ahead and brought food for us both.” She added the carrots and the pickles.

Anges nodded and sat across from Sophie, her red knees poking to the sides as she folder her legs under her. She was wearing her somewhat threadbare uniform skirt from the recent school year, as she had yesterday, and another t-shirt. This one was robins-egg blue and seemed to fit better than yesterday’s had done. She folded her hands in her lap, and she spoke politely.

“Very kind of you, Sophie. You don’t have to feed us both, I brought summat.” She opened her bag, and a banana, a thin butter and cucumber sandwich, and several paper-wrapped parcels of odd sizes and shapes tumbled out.

“That’s lovely,” Sophie said, while privately noting that Agnes’s meal seemed very meager, certainly not what her own mother would have considered sufficient for a growing girl.

“Why don’t we do splits?” Sophie asked. “I’ve got two apples, that’s easy. I have corned beef my mum made, with or without mustard…”

Agnes’s eyes lit up. “I do fancy mustard if you can spare it.”

“Well, you best take these then. I can have the ones without, thank you.” Sophie immediately pushed two sandwiches across to Agnes. Sophie very much liked mustard on her sandwiches, but she liked the idea of her new friend not spending the day hungry rather more.

“Well, this is just cucumber and butter, but you’re welcome to it if you like.” Agnes nudged her sandwich towards Sophie. Sophie promptly tore it in half and gave the slightly larger half back.

“I shall save my half for after the corned beef,” she said. “Sort of like a break before the sweets.”

“Sweets?” Agnes bit her lip and looked somewhat forlornly in her school bag as if it might suddenly produce a handful of toffees or a pair of chocolate bars.

“Oh, yes. My brother gave me some pocket money at the P.O.” Sophie reached into her pocket and pulled out the packets of biscuits.

“I hope you don’t mind, I got one for each of us, since they were small.”

Agnes folded her arms across her chest.

“What are you at, Roper?” Her voice was hard and suspicious. “We were never friendly until yesterday, and now you’re bringing a huge food basket, special sweets. This is because of my dad, innit? You told your mum, and now she’s all on you to do charity?”

Agnes grabbed at her banana and started stuffing things back into her bag.

“Agnes, please!” Sophie reached for her, but Agnes pulled away angrily. “Please! I promise, I didn’t tell my mum anything, just that I’d made a friend. I wouldn’t do that to you, tell someone what you told me like that.”

“Well, what about all this?” Agnes said, waving her hand at the food scattered over the blanket.

Sophie cast her eyes down. “I did get you extra biscuits, just to be sure you got some. But the food, if I was making a lunch, this is what I’d do. Honest, I just didn’t want you to feel badly, or to be hungry, when I had all I need.”

Agnes frowned. “You’re a real odd duck, Roper.”

Sophie nodded. “Not the first time I’ve been told that, or worse. I have two brothers, remember.”

Agnes settled back down. “Sorry, ‘bout before. Been a bit touchy, lately. I didn’t mean to accuse you of nothing.”

“I should have just told you, or asked. I don’t have very many friends, really. Always working on my studies or my plans for after school. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“ _Pax_?” Agnes put her hand over her heart.

“ _Pax_ ,” Sophie agreed, hand likewise passing over her heart. “Now, about those bloody sandwiches…”

Agnes laughed at Sophie’s forced attempt at cursing. They divided the food, including the small paper packages Agnes had brought which turned out to be odd ends and bits of cheeses her father had brought home from his store.

They ate, and talked about nothing, assignments at school they had liked or hated, boys who were dreamy (hardly any) or horrific (almost all), and so on. Some of the cheeses were very odd, with bits of mushroom or chard or such in them, but a few were excellent. Sophie fell in love with a cranberry Wensleydale, which Agnes generously refused to share with her so that Sophie ate the entire piece, along with bites from her apple.

Pretty soon, surrounded by apple cores, a banana peel, and a few cheese rinds, the two girls were lying, heads together and feet extending in opposite directions off the blanket. They were failing utterly to suppress a series of cheesy burps, some with mustard, some without, as they stared up at the trees arching over their heads.

After they had been quiet for some time, Agnes asked abruptly, “If you could do magic, or a genie’s wish, like, what would you do?”

Sophie’s eyes darted around, trying to figure out what to say. Had she been discovered? Was this the end of her magical life? Would her parents’ wands be broken, and the whole family obliviated, or shipped off to Azkaban? She tried to take a deep breath, but somehow she couldn’t make her lungs work, and she only managed a little squeaking sound.

“I just wonder, you know,” Agnes continued casually, “on account of my dad. We were talking last night, about everything. I told him I was wishing on every star, you know, and looking for a lucky penny. He got in a right huff. Told me my wishes for my own dreams, and not his. I let him win, but inside, you know, in my heart, I don’t think he’s looking at it right. Why can’t him being around until I’m good’n grown be my own wish? Doesn’t seem fair.”

Sophie calmed herself. She reached up over her head, and patted at Agnes’s shoulder, very nearly poking her in the eye by accident. “It surely doesn’t seem fair to me, either.”

“Tell you what,” Agnes said after a while. “Make you a deal. I’m going to wish for you, nothing but good things, success at that school of yours, all that. And if you find that you have a wish to spare for me sometime, you could use it for my dad. Would that be alright? I’d not be wishing anything for him direct, that way.”

“I promise you, Agnes. If I get a wish… or some kind of, of magic,” she crossed her fingers against the Statute of Secrecy, “I promise you I’ll do anything I can for your dad.”

“That’s settled then.” Agnes sounded drowsy, the warm day, the full stomachs, and the cool breeze under the trees making them both very sleepy.

 _I promise, on my name of Sophie, on my family as a Roper, on my blood as a witch, if I can help Mr. Dowling, I will. So mote it be._ Sophie drifted off herself, her vow still echoing in her heart.

When Sophie came back home, empty basket and leaf-covered blanket in hand, her mother was standing, hands on her hips, in the back garden, looking out over the fence. The late evening summer sun was setting over the house, casting long shadows across the graveyard. Sophie and Agnes had spent another long afternoon daydreaming, telling stories, and spending idle summer hours unsupervised in the way of eleven-year-olds out of school. Sophie had braided Agnes’s pigtails, finally getting them even, and Agnes had taught Sophie how to skip a flat rock across the small pond, sending small frogs diving for cover from the long grass.

“Sorry, Mum,” Sophie said with a chagrined smile. “Agnes and I were playing on the common, and I didn’t mean to be late.”

“Well, I’d like you to think about what would have happened if I had to send your father out looking for you in the dark, young missy.”

Sophie nodded. “It won’t happen again. I promise to be more careful.”

“You go wash up for supper, and while you’re about it, your father left something for you. On your bed.”

“Yes, Mum.” Sophie put the basket back under the counter in the kitchen, and even shook out the blanket and added it to the pile of laundry before going up to wash and see what her father had left for her.

Still drying her hands on her skirt, she entered her room to see, propped on her pillows next to Goldie and his Leprechaun gold, a large envelope with a golden seal, addressed in green ink to “Ms. Sophie Roper, the Hangman’s Daughter, 13 Peverall Place, Godric’s Hollow, Somerset.”

With trembling hands, she carefully opened the seal, and read the first page of the enclosed letter, written in the same emerald ink on warm, golden parchment:

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

**Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore**

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Ms. Roper,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

The term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 5 August.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

“MUM!” Sophie called, turning to see both her parents standing in her bedroom doorway, their faces alight.

“Our Sophie sounds excited,” her father said dispassionately.

“My word,” her mother replied. “She must have gotten too much sun today. Perhaps she needs her bed early tonight.”

Sophie looked from one of them to the other sputtering. “Bed? Bed?! They need my reply owl in three days! I haven’t shopped, or packed, or—”

“Calm down, pet,” her father said indulgently. “I think yer mum and I can recognize those letters by now. We replied this afternoon, right after the fella brought you this. Amazed he slipped in past your patrol. Owl the size of an albatross, he was. You’ll have to work on that.”

 _I’m a real witch,_ Sophie thought fiercely. _I truly am. I’m going to help Agnes, and be the greatest witch the family has ever seen. And I won’t let_ anything _stand in my way!_


	4. The Grass Is Always Greener

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophie takes a railway journey, and enters the very different world of the Greengrass family, in their stately home of Garden Hall. Sophie plays wizards chess, is served by various house-elves, and speaks up at dinner.

**Chapter 4: The Grass is Always Greener**

Sophie sat on the blue fabric seat, looking intensely out the window as the Muggle world of southwestern Britain slid by. Her father sat next to her, reading the  _ Guardian _ and making occasional “tut-tut” sounds, part of his “Muggle disguise” for rail journeys. They had been on the Great Western Railway train since it had left Castle Cary an hour ago, and they still had another hour before they arrived at London’s Paddington Station.

“Papa, tell me about your first trip to school,” Sophie said, not for the first time. “Did you ride the train to London as well?”

“I did, though not so quick in my day,” he said, not looking up from his paper. “Seemed to take hours and hours, it did. Mind, I hadn’t been able to sleep, so I was pretty tired.”

“I can imagine,” Sophie said, watching the countryside roll by. “Have we any lemon squash left?” 

He folded the paper down and looked at her over the page.

“What did I say, last time?”

She lowered her eyes. “If I drank all that squash, I’d have to run to the toilets again.”

“And what happened?”

“I drank the squash.”

“And?”

“Oh, fine,” she said and went back to looking out the window. She wished that she had brought Goldie along. Not that she still needed a stuffed animal. Sophie was eleven now and a proper witch, about to go to Hogwarts, and she did not need a stuffed animal. Still, riding the train with her father, staying by herself with the Greengrass sisters, and meeting her mother in a week for shopping in Diagon Alley was quite a series of adventures. It was just a shame that Goldie would miss it, she rationalized.

She sat back and tried again to remember everything she could about the Greengrass sisters, Daphne and Astoria, who she had met during a seaside holiday the previous summer. While Sophie had been nearly ten, Daphne had been ten since the end of the school term and had made something of a show of being the oldest. Despite this, she and Sohpie had gotten along well. They had made castles of sand and stones on the beach, had splashed cheerfully in the cool water, and had rather enjoyed being older than Astoria, who had not yet turned eight and would not do so until after school started again. Astoria, for her part, was a quiet and well-behaved girl who didn’t go in for all the blubbering and wheedling that is sometimes expected of the younger sister. Sophie, being a younger sister herself appreciated this and had formed a sort of camaraderie with young Astoria.

Both of the sisters were fair, with delicate features, pretty blonde hair which was constantly being brushed out straight by their mother, the rather imposing Mrs. Greengrass. Neither seemed to favor their father, who was rather darker, short, and somewhat thick in the middle, and who had spent most of the trip talking politics with Sophie’s father, something her father had pretended to enjoy primarily for his wife’s sake. Sophie’s mother had enjoyed the company of the Greengrasses very much, as apparently the Selwyns and Greengrasses had been united by marriage, business, and politics for a very long time.

The only thing that had made a strong impression about Mr. Greengrass was the way he had scowled when a pair of young Muggle boys had come along, splashing along the edge of the sea. He had continued to make a sour puss until the boys had moved on, followed by an elderly gran trudging along patiently behind them.

With the rattle of the train car on the rails and the warm comfort of her father beside her, Sophie drifted off somewhat, only to jolt awake when her father stood up. She realized they had passed through the edges of the city, and stopped inside Paddington Station, and it was time to leave the train. She hurriedly gathered her things, as her father hefted her case under one strong arm.

“Come on, pet,” he said, “Don’t want to keep your friends waiting, do we?”

Sophie was surprised to see that the Greengrasses were waiting with their mother at the end of the platform. She somehow found the elegant, formal Mrs. Greengrass wildly out of place, in her fancy robes, among all the Muggles and bustle of a rail platform. As she and her father approached them, however, Sophie saw that the witches waiting for them were standing in the middle of the platform, while the Muggles around them split like a river around a rock, not acknowledging their presence at all. They must be using a Notice-Me-Not or something similar, she realized.

“David,” Mrs. Greengrass said warmly, nodding to her father. “Lovely to see you.”

Her tone was pleasant, but she made no move to embrace, or even gesture. She was very tall and regal, standing there as the crowd parted around her. Sophie remembered her manners as her mother had instructed.

“Thank you for coming to meet us, Mrs. Greengrass. I’m very happy to be invited to stay with you.”

The two Greengrass girls looked at Sophie a bit oddly, as if apprehensive for some reason, but they relaxed markedly when their mother spoke to Sophie, who wasn’t sure it was not her own nerves that made her imagine it.

“Of course.” Mrs. Greengrass looked at her, and then smiled a momentary smile which faded as quickly as it had arrived. “Well, let us get back to Garden Hall, and see if we can get you changed into something more… suitable.” 

Sophie’s smile faltered a bit, and she cast a quick glance at her father. She was wearing leather shoes with ankle socks, a navy skirt that passed her knees, and a white blouse with a navy jumper. She had thought she looked quite smart and had even spent time making sure her hair was brushed, her nails were clean, and that she had her hands and face scrubbed pink. By no means a fussy girl, this was the height of presentable for Sophie.

Her father said nothing, but his hand on her shoulder gave a reassuring little squeeze.

“It’s lovely that you’ve come,” Daphne spoke, at last, leaning forward to give Sophie a quick embrace. “We’re ever so excited to have you.”

“Ever so,” Astoria added. Sophie realized that both girls were wearing dressy robes like their mother, not Muggle-type clothing. Perhaps that was what their mother meant by suitable.

“Thank you both,” Sophie said, feeling much more comfortable speaking to the girls.

“Will you be joining us for tea, before you must go and leave the girl with us, David?” Mrs. Greengrass seemed perfectly content speaking over Sophie’s head as though she wasn’t there. This sort of thing usually rankled the admittedly precocious Sophie, but she was happy to ignore it for now.

“I’m afraid I have other demands today, Alora.” He leaned down to give Sophie a quick hug, and she squeezed him tightly. The idea of a week with the Greengrasses had quickly gone from an exciting possibility to a somewhat daunting reality. Fortunately, she was saved by the timely intervention of the girls.

“We have an elf to take care of your trunk if you’d like,” Daphne said, gesturing to a small, hooded figure standing just behind Mrs. Greengrass. What had appeared to be a small child with a hood proved to be a house-elf with a scrap of cloth wrapped around her, much like an Arabian princess in her silks.

“Oh,” Sophie said, feeling very provincial and obvious even as the sound escaped her lips. “Thank you.”

Her father set down the trunk, and Sophie gave him a hug and a kiss on his cheek.

“You be a good girl, mind, and do as your told.” His voice was gruff but she saw a twinkle in his eye that might have been a tear. “Your mother’s arranged to pick you up on Friday, so I’ll see you on the weekend. Bye now.”

“Bye, Papa.” With a brief nod to Mrs. Greengrass and her girls, her father was gone, walking along the platform and blending in reasonably well with the Muggles.

“How do we get to your home from here?” Sophie asked Daphne, looking around at the cavernous Muggle train station.

“Our elf will take all your things, and there’s a floo connection just across the way,” Daphne said with the sophistication of a city-dweller. “We have to hurry, now. Once Pollyberry takes your trunk, the Notice-Me-Not won’t last in this crowd.”

Daphne took her arm and leaned in to share a confidence in Sophie’s ear. “Mother hates dealing with Muggles, so we really should go.”

Without discussion, Daphne’s mother turned and strode from the platform towards a small alcove inside the station proper. Behind them, Sophie could hear the sharp crack of the apparating house-elf. Inside the alcove, Alora Greengrass tapped a small cupboard door with her wand smartly, and they entered, to find a magically roaring fire, with a large urn of floo powder placed conveniently to either side.

“Go along, Astoria, and Daphne, right behind.”

“Yes, mother,” the girls chorused, each taking a pinch of powder. They threw them into the grate, which reared up with gouts of green flame. 

“Garden Hall,” each girl said clearly before vanishing into the flames.

Sophie went to take her pinch of powder, only to find her arm in the tight grip of the girls’ mother, who was bent forward to look at her intensely.

“Now, Sophie, I’m not sure about the customs in the country,” she said, making it sound like she was talking about some distant foreign land, and not a two-hour train journey across southern England, “but in Garden Hall, one addresses the lady of the family as Lady Greengrass, but as we are such old friends with your mother, you should call me Lady Alora, unless there is formal company. Do you understand?”

Sophie blinked rapidly. “Yes, of course, Lady G–, Lady Alora. Please excuse my mistake.”

The woman smiled, and released Sophie’s arm, but not without a slight twist, perhaps accidental, that pinched the softest part of her arm through her jumper.

“Garden Hall,” she said, trying not to let her voice waiver as she stepped into the grate. With a roar of flame and a spinning, spiraling twist, she stepped out of the grate in the main room of Garden Hall, to find both girls waiting for her with expectant smiles. She quickly stepped aside and went to brush the inevitable spark or soot from her clothes, but before she could do so, a different house-elf, a little male elf with a wrinkled head like a turnip and huge amber eyes, was whisking at her with a small broom, tut-tutting and fussing over her.

“Oh, hello,” said Sophie politely. He said nothing, jumping into place instead when Lady Alora emerged from the floo, impatiently tapping her foot while the little elf whisked and brushed at her immaculate gown.

“Come along, Sophie,” Astoria said before her older sister could beat her to the punch. “Let me show you where you’ll be staying! We’ve been ever so anxious, waiting.”

Daphne grabbed one of her hands and Astoria the other, and they practically carried her up a large, carpeted stair with dark polished oak handrails and little brass rods that kept the ornate rug snugly against the risers. Their home was large, high-ceilinged, and decorated everywhere with portraits of snoozing ancestors and enormous vases of improbably large flowers. They brought her up two flights of stairs, and there was a further flight to go, she saw.

The girls occupied matching rooms which opened onto a playroom, formerly the nursery, which had a number of large toys, small tables with books and games, and a set of wizard chess that was almost life-sized to Astoria. The chessmen were arrayed on a marble tile floor nearly twenty feet across, and a few of the pawns saluted hopefully as Sophie and Daphne passed them by. On the far side of the room, a bed had been made up, with a gossamer canopy, a bedside table to either side, her bag already unpacked into a trunk at the bed’s foot, and even a small bookshelf, filled with what appeared to be a variety of romantic novels targeted at the young adult witch.

It was all rather a lot to take in. Sophie was almost afraid to sit on the fine bed linens until Astoria lept and flopped on her belly onto the bed. Daphne tutted at her sister, and sat at the end, gesturing for Sophie to join her. The bed was soft, the linens very fine. The blanket appeared to be a woven magical tapestry, with small golden dragons circling lazily over broad green fields, occasionally spouting a wisp of golden-threaded fire.

“I hope this is alright,” Daphne said anxiously. “I don’t know what you may be used to, and we’ve never been allowed a guest our age to stay over before. Do you like it?”

“Like it?” Sophie nodded. “It’s lovely. This blanket? It’s wonderful, thank you.”

“I picked the blanket,” Astoria asserted quickly. “It’s all her books and whatnot, but the blanket was totally my idea.”

“Well, it’s smashing, thank you.” 

Sophie saw Daphne give a bit of an eye roll at her sister’s desire to be involved. They actually got along quite well, considering that they were sisters often alone together in a large house. Sophie’s visit was a welcome diversion from their summer routine.

“I love your chess set,” Sophie said. “Do you think later we can play?”

Daphne nodded but was honest enough to gesture to her sister. “You probably want Astoria, actually. She can usually beat me.”

“Oh, no,” Astoria said shrewdly. “I want to see her beat you first so I know what I’m up against. Let’s go, come on.”

It seemed that Daphne was not being modest, but instead had been pretty accurate in her assessment. While it took Sophie a few moves to adjust to shouting out her orders and letting the pieces march to their destinations, rather than moving them by hand, it was clear that Daphne was a very tactical player. She seemed unable to see more than a move ahead, played defensively, and was defeated by a fairly common gambit. Sophie was feeling a bit regretful for dispatching her friend so quickly, but she need not have fretted. Daphne shrugged off the loss with grace and smiled.

“Now you’ve done it,” Daphne said with an almost gleeful tone. “She’s seen you can actually play, and she won’t hold back.”

The chessmen were reset, the magical pieces collecting their fallen comrades and marching back to their starting squares. Sophie imagined that the pieces on her side wore looks of grim determination, while Astoria’s pieces seemed almost casual, leaning on their swords and chatting quietly amongst themselves.

After five minutes, Sophie realized that she should pay closer attention, as Astoria had offered an obvious trap, and while Sophie had recognized it and moved to counter, Astoria had then shifted the entire focus of her attack, and Sophie was forced to react, move after move, slowly ceding stronger positions to save her pieces. Down two pawns and a knight, she thought she saw a predictable pattern in Astoria’s attacks and tried to lure her into a trap by exposing her queen.

Astoria actually yawned, and then called out her move. Her rook took Sophie’s bishop and collapsed the trap, putting Sophie into check.

Sophie looked at the board, trying to see her way out. She hung her head.

“Good game, Astoria. You have me in three.”

“Well, yes, but it’s more fun if you don’t see it coming.” Astoria tipped over Sophie’s king with a little sharp shove. “Again?”

They played chess, and talked about books, and swapped stories and had a generally lovely time until they were interrupted by a long, low gong sound.

“Okay, time to dress for dinner,” Daphne said, shooing Astoria off towards her room. “Sophie, you can change in here, alright?”

Sophie looked towards her unpacked bag and the trunk which contained all of her things. 

“How exactly am I to dress?” Sophie thought her skirt and jumper were very smart and other than some more casual clothes and night things, she wasn’t sure what else she might have to wear that would meet with Lady Alora’s approval.

Daphne looked at her, up and down, and said, “Well, Mother and Father prefer formal dinners, but for the rest of the time what you have on now should be fine.”

Daphne closed Astoria’s door behind her and came over to Sophie.

“Will dress robes be a problem?”

Sophie nodded, her face scarlet. “At home, we’re much more casual, I guess. I didn’t think to bring my best clothes. I’m so sorry.”

Daphne waved it away. “Please, I’m sure that we can fix this. Come with me.”

Entering Daphne’s room, Sophie noticed right away that it was very grown-up in its colours of green and grey, with pewter pulls on the drawers and luxurious carpets on the hardwood floors, prominently featuring the symbol of Slytherin House. Of the four houses at Hogwarts, Sophie knew that Slytherin most valued family history, ambition, and achievement. Her mother had been in Slytherin as well, though her father had been in Ravenclaw, noted for their insight and scholarship. Daphne led Sophie to a wardrobe along one wall by the windows, and pulled on the large pewter handle in the figure of a serpent, revealing a magically extended space that went back a dozen feet or more. Clothes of all styles and for all seasons stretched away on long racks.

“Boxbrown!” Daphne called out, and immediately a house-elf appeared. Sophie had never seen a household with more than one elf before, much less the three she had met so far at Garden Hall.

The short, fat elf, with enormously long fingers and toes, and a little pug nose that stuck up in the air, bowed deeply to Daphne. His little towel toga appeared to be fastened at the back with an old hat pin. A crown of white hair circled his head but left the top shining brown, the colour of an old apple core.

“Yes, Mistress?” He intoned in the deepest voice Sophie had ever heard from an elf. It was almost as low as a human child’s voice, she thought.

“This is Mistress Roper, Boxbrown. She will be joining us for dinner. Find her something suitable, and mind that it fits her properly. Mother and Father will be dining with us tonight.”

“Of course, Mistress.” Boxbrown turned and rapidly had Sophie stripped to her underthings, standing apprehensive in front of the wardrobe. Daphne paid no mind, simply lifting her clothes up over her head to reveal that she was stark naked underneath. While Daphne slipped into an emerald silk shift and took her own dress robs out, Boxbrown made a series of stretching, reaching gestures, which Sophie eventually understood to be for measurements.

A few moments after disappearing into the wardrobe’s dimmer recesses, the elf emerged with a set of dress robes in black, trimmed with bits of emerald. After considering Sophie for just a moment, Boxbrown made use of the domestic magic of house-elves to make the robes somewhat shorter, and to change the Greengrass emerald to a more neutral pale gold.

One Sophie was dressed, the elderly elf insisted on standing her before a full-length mirror, where he made a number of adjustments invisible to Sophie but apparently critical to his understanding of the word “suitable.”

Daphne and Astoria were both ready as well, and Astoria said pleasantly, “Shall we go down?”

Sophie followed along, having failed to thank Boxbrown for his hard work before he could quickly and discreetly apparate away. He had vanished with a soft popping sound just as Sophie had opened her mouth to thank him. The girls led her downstairs and along a high-ceilinged corridor which opened into a formal dining room. Seeing the table, the silver and linens, and the numerous chandeliers magically affixed in the air overhead, Sophie was very glad she had dressed.

The dinner was a very strange affair to Sophie, compared to the friendly and she now realized very informal dinners at home. Everyone sat, wearing their very fine clothes, and they were served by Pollyberry and yet another house-elf, a much younger looking elf who wore what appeared to be a pasteboard chocolates box as a sort of cap, and who never spoke. His name was Blackburn, which struck Sophie as rather odd as he was very pale white, with a large, long red nose in the shape of an aubergine.

The elves were never acknowledged, but rather simply commanded by Lady Alora. After Sophie thanked Blackburn for providing her with a large glass of milk, his eyes opened comically wide, and he hurried from her side, posting himself on the opposite side of the table by Astoria. Sophie realized that no one thanked the elves, nor could she remember them doing so since her arrival. She wondered if this was a sign of her unsophisticated country manners or something to do with the character of the Greengrass household at Garden Hall.

She had worried about being able to contribute something meaningful to the conversation around the table. Lady Alora spoke only to the house-elves, giving commands as to the dinner service, and to her husband. Mr. Greengrass was apparently to be addressed as Lord Alvertus, which Sophie had not even known was his name, or simply “Sir.”

It turned out that she needn’t have worried. While her hosts spoke across the long table to one another, discussing something about “the Twenty Eight” and how terrible it was that Weasley was still included, while a conscientious and right-thinking witch, like Dolores Umbridge, had to toil away as an obscure backbencher because she was only distantly a Selwyn. Sophie had perked up at this, and said, “I’m a Selwyn, on my mother’s side.”

Lady Alora had simply looked at her, silently, with no visible reaction. Lord Alvertus looked at Sophie as if noticing her for the first time. He nodded after a moment. Then he took a bite of his halibut and a drink of wine.

After a long minute of silence, Lady Alora asked her husband if there had been any news about efforts to improve “the situation” at the Ministry, to which he made some non-committal and very obscure replies. Sophie, Daphne, and Astoria finished the meal in silence. Sophie finished her fish, and carefully set her silverware down on her plate as Daphne had done.

The food was fancy, with lots of very complex sauces and interesting plating across a number of courses, but Sophie thought she’d trade it all for a slice of stargazy pie. Or corned beef and mustard sandwiches, on a blanket under the trees with a good friend.

Later that night, as she tucked herself into her beautiful bed with its fine bedclothes, Sophie was glad that Daphne and Astoria had warmed up again once they had all returned upstairs. If the whole week was going to be like that dinner, she thought, she might very well try to find her way back to the railway station on her own. She fell asleep, dearly wishing that she had brought Goldie along after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All house-elves in the Greengrass household just so happen to be named after famous slaves... One may make one's own inferences.
> 
> Pollyberry  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Berry
> 
> Kraft (the unnamed elf who whisks the floor arrivals)  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_and_William_Craft
> 
> Boxbrown  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Box_Brown
> 
> Blackburn  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_%22Teen%22_Blackburn


End file.
